Cuban Missile Crisis Essay

Thirteen days. For some, it seemed like a lifetime. Thirteen days. For others, it was the scariest moments of their lives. Just thirteen short days to prevent a nuclear war. After Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban government, he turned Cuba into a communist regime. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics decided to provide Cuba with Soviet aid. Soon after, The United States found evidence of nuclear missiles. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an important time in both Cuban and American history. Castro’s Cuba was just the beginning, things then started to intensify with Soviet aid, and culminated with the United States responding to end it all.

In 1962, Cuba was convinced that the USA was planning to attack them and asked the Soviet Union for military assistance. The USSR sent Cuba materials to build missile bases and launch sites. When President Kennedy realized that Cuba could launch missiles into America, he demanded that the USSR remove its weapons and troops. The Americans formed a naval blockade as the world stood nervously on the edge of a nuclear war. The USSR removed its weapons despite protests from Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 lasted thirteen days and was one of the major events during the Cold War, when the United States and the Soviet Union were brink of a nuclear world war. Fidel Castro had become leader of Cuba and had turned the country into a communist state, similar to the Soviet Union. The USSR was given permission to place nuclear missiles in Cuba to target major cities in the United States, the reason was because the Soviet Union was threatened by the missiles placed in Italy and Turkey by the Americans. However, neither of the nation's fired their weapons; and an agreement between Nikita Khrushchev (leader of the USSR) and President John F.

During this time Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the USSR during this time, and John F. Kennedy, the president of the US also during this time, were scared of the thought too. As said in Document A it states, “We are willing to remove from Cuba the [missiles]” this means that Mr. Khrushchev wouldn’t have made this claim unless he didn’t want any conflict with the US. See if he did want conflict he would have kept the missiles in Cuba. This is extremely vital to the idea of the Cuban Missile Crisis not ending in an incident because if Mr. Khrushchev didn’t remove the nuclear missiles then a nuclear World War III would’ve broken out. We would be living in a nuclear wasteland. If we would be alive that

What was the Cuban Missile Crisis? Many people have heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and may have learned about it during school, but they do not know the nitty gritty details of the whole fiasco. The CMC was the first threat of a nuclear world war. The real “crisis” was between the United States and the Soviet Union and not Cuba. Cuba played a relatively small role in the grand scheme of it all and was basically the field on which the two powerhouses played on. The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most tense 13 days that the world has ever known and had the possibility of completely disintegrating the world we know today. In this paper we will learn exactly what happened.

Imagine that you are John F. Kennedy in 1962, and you find out that your ally, Cuba, has your enemy, Soviet Union, has ICBMS (intermediate- range ballistic missiles) & Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers, that could reach the United States and aimed toward the United States. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a thirteen-day confrontation between the United States, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. Cuba had the missiles there for like three months before one of the U.S had a spy plane that figured out that Cuba had the Soviets Missiles. For a while, the U.S had Intel that Cuba had the missiles but JFK did not believe that Cuba was betraying them. These missiles were only ninety miles away from Florida the U.S. issued a military blockade to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba. When all the offensive missiles and light bombers were taken from Cuba the blockade was initially ended on November 21, 1962. Although the Cuban Missile Crisis ruined relations with the United States of America and Cuba, it impacted the blockade between the United States of America and Cuba, the respect for the United States of America, and the Bay of the Pigs.

During discussion of the findings, there was proposals to invade Cuba to remove such missiles. However, after about a week of President Kennedy and

The crisis began on October 15, 1962 when photographs by a U.S. spy plane revealed Soviet missiles under construction in Cuba just 90 miles away from the coast of the United States. The crisis ended on October 28 during the tense thirteen days of standoff, the two great superpowers faced off in stalemate. The crisis finally ended when Kennedy and Khrushchev made the secret deal. In exchange for the Soviets backing down their missiles, the United States would get rid of its nuclear missiles from Turkey and promise not to invade Cuba. ( John F. Kennedy)We've never been any closer to world destruction than the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In October of 1962, a U2-plane spotted and photographed nuclear war missiles on the island of Cuba. President Kennedy did not want to address the nation just yet about the conflict that could change the world for forever. The History Channel’s "The Cuban Missile Crisis" declassified full documentary told the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the people at the White House point of view. It showed us the stress and pressure that was put on their shoulders during this crisis. The Soviet Union thought that they would be able catch us off guard and force us to surrender with this threat. This was one of the greatest threats the United States has ever faced. We had a time advantage, we used that time to formulate a plan of response. Until we was ready with our response we did not want them to know that a response would be given. The government wanted to resolve the

However, the strategy did not go as planned, and Castro’s army defeated and captured the invaders. It was later exposed that Kennedy had abandoned the aid of Air Force coverage just prior to attacking; if Kennedy had given more support to the mission and investigated the situation in Cuba further, the disaster at the Bay of Pigs may have been averted. “As much as the United States tried to undermine Castro and his move to embrace communism in Cuba, the United States’ efforts only solidified Castro’s influence and increase his search for Soviet assistance.” Similarly, “the incident presented the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev with the comprehension of Russia’s nuclear credibility.” Retrospectively, it is apparent that the United States should have realized retaliation was in order from Cuba and the Soviet Union.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was the only devastating event in U.S. to ever bring the country into DEFCON-2. Ever since World War 2, the U.S. and the Soviet Union have been rivals(Jeffery, Riley, 4). The Soviets later aligned themselves with the small country of Cuba. It is a small piece of land in enemy territory, but it is very important to them because they have to protect their allies at all times. For this reason, The USSR placed missiles in Cuba to keep them prepared for an invasion. In 1962, The two huge superpowers brought the Cold War to a nuclear crisis in Cuba which led to DEFCON-2, the closest point to a nuclear war(The Choices Program)

President Kennedy asked General Walter C. Sweeney, Commander in Chief of the Tactical Air Command if they could destroy all other missile sites and nuclear weapons in Cuba with an invasion. General Sweeney said they could take out all of the missiles they knew about but there may be one - five they would miss. President Kennedy knew that even one missile could kill millions of Americans and he could not accept the risk of that happening. Because of that he endorsed the naval quarantine. Following the blatant lie by Gromyko and newly acquired information from recent surveillance film confirming the shipment of missiles and the building of bases in Cuba, President Kennedy felt it was necessary to make this information available to the people of the United States and world on Monday, October 22, 1961 (14 days in October, Day 6 & 7).

During the Cuba missile crisis near every newspaper and radio station would talk about how the end of the world on the brink of destruction. Because of this many people around this time lived in fear and felt the world was going to end. The effects of the Cuba missile crisis didn’t just affect the two nations its effects also had major effects on the people of these nations, the world, and the countries themselves. These effects only truly made the world change when it was too late. The effects that the Cuba missile crisis left on the people of these nations consisted of fear, panic, and enough paranoia to scary the entire world. It also affected the world as other counties would do anything

Kennedy was informed the the missiles that very same day and his advisors told him that they wanted an air strike followed by an invasion put up in Cuba. Kennedy knew that if the US invaded the Soviets would use their missiles.

When speaking about the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy said, "It is insane that two men, sitting on opposite sides of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization” (“Nuclear Test Ban Treaty” 1). the Cuban Missile Crisis was a time where these two men, Kennedy and Khrushchev, had the power in their hands to end civilization. In order to understand the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis one must understand, the Cold war drama; the dangerous crisis; and its importance today.